For a long time now I’ve been interested in running an old-school points-of-light style fantasy game, for no particular reason. I’ve never played or run one, so it’s not for nostalgia’s sake; rather, it’s probably for the opposite reason—because I’ve never really experienced with that style of game. “Points of Light” was the one thing … More Points of Light, Oceans of Darkness
One thing’s for sure, Paizo has kept up an impressive quality level on its world-building supplements, keeping its Chronicles/Campaign Setting books on the same bar as the best 3.5 supplements—and often raising that bar. I found the various 3.x “fluffier” books hit or miss, and got into the habit of avoiding them. So it’s been … More RPG Review: Pathfinder – Distant Worlds
I think it’s interesting how conceptions on pop-culture phenomena change over a given time; positive and negative connotations switch places, and even the meaning of the name isn’t stable. Take comic books, for example: for most of the 20th Century they were looked down upon as just-for-kids, childish funnies that grown adults had no reason … More Everything Bad is Good
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” Let’s take a trip back to 1994. Alec Baldwin was on the fast-track to action-movie stardom, following his role as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October. Penelope Ann Miller was a rising starlet, popping up in a growing number of films, the most … More Action Movie Review – The Shadow (1994)
The latest in Paizo Publishing’s Planet Stories pulp reprint line is a trilogy of early Robert Silverberg tales, written for the digest Science Fiction Adventures, which was in turn looking back to the old Planet Stories pulp for inspiration. The first book, Hunt the Space Witch! (hereafter referred to as HtSW!), contains seven of his earliest stories; … More Planet Stories – Hunt the Space Witch!
(spoilers, if you haven’t read the two previous Skaith books) Reavers of Skaith is the conclusion of Brackett’s Skaith trilogy. When we last saw our intrepid heroes, things were looking up: Eric John Stark managed to contact one of the last ships out of Skaith as the starport was closing. While Stark decided to stay behind, … More The Reavers of Skaith
(slight spoilers, for those who didn’t finish The Ginger Star) The Hounds of Skaith picks up after the conclusion of The Ginger Star. Eric John Stark has ventured across the dying planet of Skaith in search of his foster-father Simon, destroying the citadel of the ruling Wandsmen in the process. Now, he has to venture … More Cry Havoc… and let slip the Hounds of Skaith.
I’ve been falling down on the job in terms of Hard Case Crime reviews—it’s not that I’m not reading them, it’s that I’m not reviewing them. It’s even more important considering the company’s recent publication woes; the company’s original publisher, Dorchester Publishing, was getting out of mass-market paperbacks. Luckily, Charles Ardai was swamped with offers … More The Return of Hard Case Crime
The spiritual successor to the pulp era came the digest years. After the pulps died, digest-sized magazines dominated the marketplace; while some continued on the pulp tradition of adventure stories chock full of action and scantily-clad space babes, the most popular and well-regarded of the digests had literary aspirations. And while fantasy and horror continued … More A Brief History of Fantastic Digest Fiction
To put it simply—there aren’t enough cat-based monsters in D&D. (Err, Pathfinder.) In the Pathfinder Bestiary, we’ve got lions, tigers (both of them), cheetahs, leopards, and… rakshasha, which now only look like cats, but are evil outsider spirits who screw with people. (Wait, demons?) If I pull out my 3.5 MM, I can use displacer … More Let Slip the Cats of War
Logic is my Virgin Sacrifice to Reality 